PlanetCatfish.com

hi all, new here... hoping someone can shed some light on what's going on with my bumblebee catfish and my bronze cory.

i shut off the light tonight and thought i'd watch it come out to eat and interact with the other fishies. i've seen it swim near the two bronze corydoras before and they usually just swim up towards the surface to get away from the cat. but tonight things were different. it looked like they were playing dead or just didn't care that the cat was around...

the bumblebee would kinda dig under the corydora and push it up towards the surface. i can't tell if it's playing, fighting, or trying to mate...
each time i took a picture, the catfish would swim away, then come back and attempt the same thing.

can anyone shed some light ? some pics below...

bumblebee catfish

catfish pushing cory

catfish next to cory

catfish pushing cory again

and again

I think the bumblebee is displaying some kind of displacement behavior as this species is usually more comfortable in a group.

so what do you think ? ok to leave the cat in the tank or should i be worried...

You have several possibilities:

- if you like the corys most and they are disturbed by the behaviour of the bumble bee, get the latter out
- if you prefer the BB, get the corys out and add some BBs
- if you like them both and none are disturbed by each other, you could leave it as it is or still add some BBs.

Mind you, the BBs will grow larger than the corys and I wouldn't be surprised if they are going to harrass the corys in the future.
So think it over and make a wise decision.

do bumblebee catfish usually like having others with them ?

i figured they were lone cats that were territorial. i'd love to get another one

Silurus wrote: as the bumblebee is usually more comfortable in a group.

So yes, it is.
However, two is not a group and will probably end up in a worst case scenario, where the inferior is eventually killed by the superior specimen.

I wonder about the identity of this cat. Is it not a harlequin lancer? I've checked against the pix of various 'bumblebee' cats and I'm not certain either way. Talking with Jools on the PC day out it seems lancers are not so happy if kept in a group when adult - we saw small lancers at BAS. Some of the bumblebees are social, such as microglanis.

The fish is not the harlequin lancer () but . This is an undescribed species which should be getting a proper name soon.

A lousy shot of the fish taken at the exporter in Sumatra.

That's not such a bad shot to help identify P Leiacanthus. The head shape is different from a lancer. But with the line on the body it looks like a species in between the two families